Page 128 of Psync
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“Why am I not surprised to find you like this?” Haruka’s voice pulled Eli out of one of the books he had in his lap. “You look like a book troll.”
“Huh?” Eli put a finger on the page to hold his place and looked around.
He was wedged against the side of a bookcase and had several stacks of books surrounding him. Some of them were nearly as tall as he was and wobbled dangerously.
Haruka took the top off the tallest pile and started a new one, adding the top of the next tallest tower to it before he sat down in front of Eli. “You know this room has tables. Big ones.”
“Yeah yeah, sure,” Eli agreed absently before shoving a book in Haruka’s face titledEuropean Fairytales. “Look at this.”
At first Eli had zero luck, mostly because he was so excited he couldn’t focus, and partly because most of the books weren’t in English. And the ones in languages he could read were a bit too advanced for him to be able to understand them fully. Then he found a small, leather-bound book tucked away so high, only a bona fide shelf-climber like Eli would ever think to look.
Eli chuckled as he thought about what Haruka’s face would have looked like if he’d seen him dangling twenty feet off the ground while straining to snag the edge of the tiny book stuffed on top of a row of dusty old tomes.
“It would look like this.” Haruka’s eyes burned into his, and Eli realized their knees were touching. “There are ladders in here, you didn’t have to risk yourself for a book.”
“They’re too heavy to move every time I need to find something.” Eli moved his knees away from Haruka’s. “See, this is why I need to research our bond.”
“I see no problem with it.”
“That’s because you don’t have to worry about me wandering around inside your head all the time.”
“You seemed to like it fine yesterday,” Haruka said, a small pout forming on his lips.
“Shut up. You know exactly how I feel about that—you don’t need to go fishing for compliments.”
Haruka preened. “Then I don’t see what the problem is.”
“It feels like you’re closer to me than I am to you. I know you think you’re protecting me from something scary inside of you, but did you ever consider that I might like it? If it’s a part of you, then it’s just more Haruka and I love Haruka—even the annoying bits. Why wouldn’t I want to know everything about my favorite person?”
For a second, Haruka’s cool as ice expression faltered, and Eli caught a glimpse of something vulnerable and childlike before his face closed up. “Hn.”
Rather than push, it was better to let Haruka process what Eli said. Otherwise, they’d fight, and Eli wouldn’t be able to show him the super cool story he’d just found.
Eli crawled into Haruka’s lap so they could look at the battered book together. “I don’t know why it caught my attention—maybe because it was so hard to get to.” When Haruka grumbled unhappily, Eli hurried on. “But when I flipped through it, I found a story about a group of traveling merchants. They were insanely lucky—apparently they had the favor of some god. Anyway, they spent generations enjoying the god’s patronage until he asked them for one of their daughters.”
When Eli had reached this part of the story the first time, the hair on his arms stood on end. Kind of like it was now.
Eli shivered and continued.
“The merchant family loved their god, but they loved their daughter even more, so they politely turned him down. Unfortunately, this god turned out to be a dick and cursed the whole family.” Eli pointed to an illustration of a beam of light striking a group of cowering people. “He tore each person in half and scattered the parts to the four corners of the earth, saying none of them would ever be happy until they found their other half.”
“What happened to the girl?”
“Apparently the god decided to be an even bigger dick to her. He cursed her to be drawn to herself in each life, only to be torn apart, lifetime after lifetime.”
Haruka said nothing, but his fingers dug into Eli’s sides.
“I know, creepy, right? Anyway, the reason why this stuck with me is because it says when a shattered soul gets close to their other half, they can hear each other. Sounds familiar, no?”
It was actually starting to feel a little too familiar for Eli’s taste. It wasn’t just his arms now, the hair on the back of his neck was standing up, too. Maybe calling it a super cool story was a stretch.
Haruka took the book out of Eli’s hands and read it while Eli rubbed his arms. When he put the book down, Eli asked, “What do you think?”
“I think that god has too much time on his hands.” Haruka poked Eli’s cheek. “And so do you. Let’s go eat.”
Eli scooted off Haruka’s lap, feeling a little disappointed, until he noticed a faint line of goosebumps going from Haruka’s neck to his hairline.
